How much longer will the BB Playbook last?

If you have to get that share price up, sometimes you have to ditch the ugly stepchild to please the markets and the stockholders.

The playbook is one ugly buck-toothed ginger haired monster as far as the markets are concerned. If it ain't Apple or Android they just aren't interested.

I could see BB10 being marginally successful (as in selling as good as or slightly better than Winmo8) and the share price raising a fraction, whereby they dump playbook on a good news day. Maybe stating a return to tablets in 2015.......

The PB has sold more units then the galaxy tab and most other android tabs. If bb10 does well, the PB cant do any worse than it is now...

The PB has sold more units then the galaxy tab and most other android tabs. If bb10 does well, the PB cant do any worse than it is now...

Fundamental flaw with that argument. With tablets its not about the individual model of tablet, its the total number sold for that 'ecosystem'.

For every unwanted Playbook sold clearance for $150 I bet there are a 1000 android or ipad tablets sold. Then the android and ipad ecosystem and brand value just nukes playbook from orbit. Then there are all the android tablets currently in development......

Given the performance of the PlayBook, I think it can still last for a bit longer. It still runs great games great and still multi-tasks like a king. Android tablets need hardware refresh every month because Android's performance is not great (i.e. the OS itself isn't efficient and the manufacturers compensate by putting better hardware on it), although some of this has been fixed in ICS and JB.

I would like to think that RIM will continue the great support and bring out new models down the road. Since it is getting BB10 upgrade that tells me something, the apps are coming at a steady pace. The QNX based processor works great, solid runner. Some of the new tablets don't even have HDMI out which the Playbook has. Also the way the Playbook and a Blackberry work together is special and unlike anything out there in the market.

The PlayBook name should die, just like the Storm name did. I love my PlayBook, but I think that name has a negative connotation. I bought my PlayBook the month after it launched, in May 2011, and I feel like I've watched it grow up. It has gained so much more functionality than I ever could have imagined. I remember when it didn't even have predictive text....and now I can use predictive text to type a text message on my PlayBook using the Bridge feature.

Hardware-wise, the PlayBook isn't really far behind current tablets, and the PlayBook model I have (32GB WiFi) is almost 2 years old. With the "old RIM," sometimes I'd wonder if anyone "gets it." Like when the PlayBook launched without email, the one thing even BlackBerry-haters KNOW BlackBerrys are good at. I thought, What was RIM thinking??? It didn't matter to me, as I have had email and BBM and my calendar all through the Bridge, but for others that were impressed by the OS, size, speakers, etc., and who were considering it, the lack of email and BBM was kind of like going to McDonalds and seeing that they had no hamburgers and no fries.

I'm a very skeptical person, and I paid full price for my PlayBook, back when it was $599 for the 32GB. I actually started with the 16GB, then went to the 64GB, but the 64GB had a speaker that crackled and there were no more 64GB ones, so I got the 32GB one and got some money back. RIM's problem has always been their marketing (or lack thereof), and I remember how disappointed I was that I saw like two PlayBook commercials. They really needed to show that the PlayBook was NOTHING like their OS6 and OS7 phones. Apple has literally sold the same OS on different sized screens for the last 6 years, and people continue to eat their products up. The original iPhone's home screen looks nearly identical to the "new" iPad's home screen, which looks identical to the iPhone 5 home screen, which looks identical to my iPod touch's home screen.

For all people know, a BlackBerry tablet functions the same way that their old Curve 8300 did, the one that had an hourglass constantly on the screen. The one with the terrible web browser. The one they dumped for an iPhone.

But there is something new about RIM now, and it's not just because I'm paying more attention to them ahead of the launch of BlackBerry 10 than I was before other product launches. Seeing the mysterious image of the back of the L-Series device on RIM's BlackBerry10 page that went up yesterday might seem like a small thing, but the way it was done already shows me that they're doing their marketing differently. They're also quick to shoot down any rumors, and it is clear that someone is telling whoever's in charge, "HEY! This is rumor is really worrying our customers. We better get a handle on this." Whether it be bogus reports of RIM "abandoning the full qwerty device segment" or that the "N-Series won't be out until June," RIM is paying attention to what's being reported as fact and wastes no time in declaring it fiction. It seems like RIM is done letting people get away with writing and propelling stuff that they've SAID is untrue (that's the weird part...lots of tech blogs read and hear the same exact comments or speech from Thorsten Heins and somehow create something that was never even said).

So to me, it is like RIM has "snapped out of it" and in a way, the PlayBook was almost ahead of its time within RIM. It really is a current-feeling product, and I much prefer it to iOS 6.0.1, but the PlayBook came at the tail end of the "old RIM" and the PlayBook name will always be "RIM's failed attempt at a tablet" to those that even know what the PlayBook is/was at all. There were very few OS2.1 reviews after it released and brought us a bunch of cool sh1t, but really, who expects tech blogs to review a year+ old tablet from a company they've written off as "dead" or "dying" all because of an update to a device that their readers forgot about the month after it launched in 2011??

I think RIM can and should make another tablet, hopefully in time for Christmas 2013. By this time next year, we will have a better idea of how everyone outside the CrackBerry bubble (admit it, it's our bubble) is perceiving RIM's attempt at reclaiming relevancy amongst consumers. Most people have either had a BlackBerry and moved on to something else because it does more, or just hate BlackBerrys for no reason. RIM's focus with their marketing should be to show the ex-BlackBerry user WHAT the new BlackBerrys do and HOW cool it is to do it, and also to give the people that hate BlackBerrys for NO reason, a real reason to want to play with a BlackBerry in store, and maybe even offer some kind of incentive for people to drop the Android or iPhone in favor of a BlackBerry 10 device.

Not quite sure about this. PlayBook started off decently with early adopters, then the sales fell fast. Then the price was lowered and the lineups started for big sales. From a purely retail perspective, retailers keep re-ordering it from RIM and selling it ... and have for 18 months. There aren't retailers sitting with a big dusty pile of inventory that they're clearing out. If anything, RIM has the inventory, but the retailers order it at these good prices, sell it out (fairly quickly) and re-order.

So from that perspective, it's a viable sku for the retailers (or they wouldn't sell it). RIM, on the other hand, can't sustain this. Thorsten is cleaning up someone else's mess.

Originally Posted by daglesj

For every unwanted Playbook sold clearance for $150 I bet there are a 1000 android or ipad tablets sold.

So there's 2 billion Android and iPad tablets sold? :-P Your point is taken, though 1000 is pushing it huge. :-) I'd say more like 75-90.

Also - the way you say "Android and iPad" suggests Android dominance in this space. iPad has the majority of the market still, whereas Android in the tablet space is not dominant. Of the Android tablets, only Kindle Fire, Google Nexus, Galaxy Tab, Asus Transformer and maybe a couple others have been decent sellers. Of the dozens (or even +100 tabelts) on the market, only a few have actually sold more than a million units. PlayBook, ironically, is one of them.

Playbook is RIMs Zune. Nice hardware and a good crack at getting into a market but just too late, too expensive, badly marketed and not quite offering what the competition offered.

Agree, though how was PlayBook 'too late', given it was an early entry? I'm of the opinion that RIM would have more success if they waited 6 months, launched with 2.0 (email, contacts, calendar, android player) and sold for $349.

The PlayBook name should die, just like the Storm name did.

I'm mixed on this. Yeah - it has symbolized a bad product launch. But for a lot of people, not necessarily a 'bad product'. The majority of PlayBook users came into the platform at a reduced price point when the product was completed.

The Storm, on the other hand, epitomized bad the 'bad BlackBerry' for reviewers and many customers.

So there's 2 billion Android and iPad tablets sold? :-P Your point is taken, though 1000 is pushing it huge. :-) I'd say more like 75-90.

Well the main point was - "For every unwanted Playbook sold clearance for $150".

Thats the big difference. The Playbook is warehouse clearance stock. Hardly anyone wanted one till they dropped to clearance. I certainly wouldn't have bought one at 250+. No matter how you look at it, it's a disaster. The other tablets are all selling nicely and boosting their respective ecosystems.

And Playbooks now may well be selling well at this price but any word on how many are getting taken back to the store the next day? Case in point, I post on another forum and I mentioned back in September I picked up a Playbook for 130. On that note about half a dozen others then went out and bought them. Of the seven of us, I am the only one that kept mine. The others all took theirs back within a week as they didn't have apps they wanted etc. etc. Most bought Nexus 7s or iPads as alternatives.

So hang around till after xmas cos there could be a further mountain of pre-owned Manager's specials going for $99!

Plus how many great new apps from hot keen top developers are we attracting in App World each month? Maybe two? Three if we are lucky.

We just have to face the fact that Playbook is a great example of how NOT to run a major IT project.

When RIM announced in early 2011 that they were releasing a tablet that would let me surf the internet through my BB handset without having to pay Verizon an extra $30 a month for the privilege, I was totally stoked---then they announced the price. So much for that idea!

Then a funny thing happened. Turns out that when RIM baked the PB, it plumb forgot to turn on the oven. A mere five months later, it was already half price! So once again my interest was piqued. I loved the solid hardware and the sleek, simple user interface. But even $300 was exorbitant for a device that, in actuality, did little more than browse. The newly announced Kindle Fire could do that, and a lot more, for $100 less. But the BB Bridge was pivotal, as I rarely have access to WiFi. So I told a friend, "When the PlayBook hits $200 I will buy it."

That event happened on November 20, 2011. Since then, I have been more than satisfied. It does the job I wanted it to do. The myriad of improvements since then is just icing on the cake. I was dumbfounded when I heard that RIM will be expending considerable resources to put BB10 on it, considering what a monumental marketing disaster the PlayBook has been.

If BB10 is successful, I very much look forward to RIM's new tablet offerings. I just hope RIM remembers two things: Pick a practical price. And turn on the oven.

FYI the only problem was a mis-alignment of the USB so that I could not connect the charger anymore. Other than that it worked quite well. there is no way there was moisture damage. I don't think I am being unreasonable, especially since they didn't respond to any of my emails and guaranteed repair within 5 days. It was 2 weeks and I didn't hear a word from them until I called. I think they are dishing out BS, especially since it was only 6 months old.

Why is a Canadian company having US repair their products anyway. I bought Blackberry because it was Canadian

All you have to do is call BlackBerry PlayBook Support and request to speak to Customer Loyalty. Normally, BlackBerry PlayBook Support will go out of their way to fix a tablet if no end-user misuse of the product has occurred. FYI - the transition to US-based support services has been ongoing for at least a year as the race to cut costs by establishing call centres in low-wage states progresses. And Research In Motion has always presented itself as a US company from the spelling on their websites to much of the way they downplay any hint of being a Canadian headquartered corporation. I'm shocked the call centre staff are not told to say, "Hello, I'm Bubba from Arkansas. How may I help you? No, no, sir, we are not in Canada." (all spoken with
's Indian accent)

Then a funny thing happened. Turns out that when RIM baked the PB, it plumb forgot to turn on the oven.

That event happened on November 20, 2011. Since then, I have been more than satisfied. It does the job I wanted it to do. The myriad of improvements since then is just icing on the cake. I was dumbfounded when I heard that RIM will be expending considerable resources to put BB10 on it, considering what a monumental marketing disaster the PlayBook has been.

If BB10 is successful, I very much look forward to RIM's new tablet offerings. I just hope RIM remembers two things: Pick a practical price. And turn on the oven.

Didn't you read the caution notice on the EasyBake Oven? It clearly states the oven may get hot and cause burns to the skin. Only operate with adult supervision. Mike and Jim did not have adult supervision so they could not turn-on the heating element of the EasyBake Oven. ROFLAMO on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Not quite sure about this. PlayBook started off decently with early adopters, then the sales fell fast.

My sources told me that even RIM employees were eager to get their hands on the BlackBerry PlayBook way back in April 2011 and rushed out to the electronic stores on 19 April 2011. Within the first month the writing was on the wall in regards to lack lustre internal development support and blatant lack of advertising for the fledgling tablet. The product stagnated until Thorsten Heins took over the reins of Research In Motion, although it could be argued the tablet remains stagnated and without the external developers this tablet would be sitting in closets or drawers unused today.

Given the performance of the PlayBook, I think it can still last for a bit longer. It still runs great games great and still multi-tasks like a king. Android tablets need hardware refresh every month because Android's performance is not great (i.e. the OS itself isn't efficient and the manufacturers compensate by putting better hardware on it), although some of this has been fixed in ICS and JB.

I don't understand or agree with this. I've got a PB and an Android tablet with ICS. The Android runs smoothly and well, with a far better ecosystem than the PB, and mail that works. It's far more functional than my PB. How does the Android OS not work?

I don't understand or agree with this. I've got a PB and an Android tablet with ICS. The Android runs smoothly and well, with a far better ecosystem than the PB, and mail that works. It's far more functional than my PB. How does the Android OS not work?

I love my playbook and use it all the time. Its my favourite device over my macbook air. However the playbook is becoming increasingly difficult to love.
I have been blocked out of appworld. So cant buy apps. I have had an open incident ticket for over 4 weeks and spent hours and hours on the phone with RIM support.
I now have lost my email and contact access and now have another open ticket with 2 hours on the phone so far with no luck.

(I skipped most of the rest of the post... and I'm ignoring the last part where it picks out one tiny bit of my post in an (apparent) (<-- see what I did there?) attempt to divert attention from the real points I was making.)

Well the main point was - "For every unwanted Playbook sold clearance for $150".

Thats the big difference. The Playbook is warehouse clearance stock. Hardly anyone wanted one till they dropped to clearance. I certainly wouldn't have bought one at 250+. No matter how you look at it, it's a disaster. The other tablets are all selling nicely and boosting their respective ecosystems.

I agree. Let's be realistic here, the Playbook was a disaster that's now being cleared out at a huge discount ($118 for the 32GB unit, RIM is actually losing money on each one sold). I enjoy using the device, but it potentially receiving BB10 is more of a fan service to those who stuck with it than to attract new buyers.

but it potentially receiving BB10 is more of a fan service to those who stuck with it than to attract new buyers.

Oh I dunno... the BB10 phones will most likely attract some new buyers, and if the PlayBook is running the same OS those buyers will probably take a look at it as a bigger-screen portal into their digital world, much as iPhone/iPad owners probably do with their devices.

Keep in mind what a financial disaster the PlayBook has been for RIM and their current *need* to placate investors. So whenever the PlayBook or tablets are brought up in an interview situation I would expect RIM to change the subject to BlackBerry 10 asap.

Right now BB10 is RIM's sole hope to return to faster growth and profits. Investors want to know that is all RIM is focused on.

Yet internally there are obviously projects focusing on "what's next" for tablets if BB10 is a hit.

Point is, on the outside here, you should not expect to see reality reflected right now as far as the future of the PlayBook goes. No software updates, etc.

I also kind of agree that RIM should change the name if they release another tablet.

Right now BB10 is RIM's sole hope to return to faster growth and profits. Investors want to know that is all RIM is focused on.

True, true, but imagine if RIM could release both the BB10 phones and the PlayBook with BB10: both complimenting one another, both synching bookmarks (etc.) through RIM's version of an iCloud, both being able to run the same apps from the BB10 store. Methinks that would make more of an impression of BB10 being an alternative ecosystem for consumers than a stand-alone phone. More and more I think consumers are looking to tie their devices together, as we're investing in a whole digitial world rather than just one device.

Why would they want to scrap it there? Make no sense. They are just going to keep what you bought and trash it and leave you with nothing? Sounds fishy to me.

Yes sure glad I asked them to send it back. It arrived today and I took a knife and bent the USB port back to where it should have been. Now it is charged and working perfectly fine. So much for the so called water damage they said mad it unrepairable. Don't know what they are up to.